Come on fish! Where are you hiding??

Time to put a stop to this fairly dismal run of form. The season has been pretty dire so far and there’s not much of it left to put things right. So it was up to Pickering Beck to stop the rot and pull out some decent quarry.

Right, 7.5ft 3wt Burns, furled leader, short tippet and two beaded nymphs should do the trick:

Conditions weren’t bad; a tad breezy but in my favour, temperature 15C and rising and the water low-ish and slightly coloured. First thing that happened as I got into the beck at around 11 am was an utter deluge, but that cleared after ten minutes or so. There’s still a fair bit of weed in the water, restricting the areas where the nymphs wouldn’t snag. I fished for fifteen minutes or so without a sniff. But a deepish run just beyond the abandoned footbridge here…

…produced the first little nipper of the day. Not large but welcome nonetheless:

Two or three casts later and another fish was on. This time a little grayling of around six inches, but it decided to do a runner before I could bring it to hand. Not to worry, the nymphs seemed to be doing the trick. Another few yards upstream and a second wee brown was on:

Three fish in not too many minutes boded well. But alas my optimism was unfounded. Nothing else for the next 20 minutes or so. The gauging weir always looks fishy but it’s been yonks since I had anything from it:

Today was no exception – zilch. But ten yards upstream in a shallow run this tiny critter had the temerity to take my fly:

I fished for another 45 minutes or so but that was my lot. The rather dismal season continues. I’m having a crisis of confidence!

Hi Simon,
Thanks for continuing with these posts and I’m afraid to say I’m sharing your frustration and lack of ‘mojo’ this year. I have hardly been out on the Seven and only once on the Dove – compared to 2 or 3 times a week usually. The low levels and clear water have put me off and I’ve resurrected my coarse fishing gear with a vengeance, fishing all over the place and enjoying watching a float going under instead of a badly controlled klinkhammer skidding past wary trout. This probably says a lot more about my confidence in my skill as a ‘real fisherman’ than the actual hardness of the fishing – but I am taking heart from your own trials and tribulations! We’ll have to have a reflective pint in the autumn to swap notes! Cheers, Chris

Well, that’s reassuring Chris (except that my own few efforts on the coarse river have also been disappointing fish-wise). I’m going to try and turn the tide in the remaining few days of the season…Watch this space!

Hi Simon
Good report. I fished the Duchy water a couple of evenings last week and had similar results.
I fished dries but there are definitely less fish rising on the beck than this time last year.
matt